Christmas cake is one of those favourite recipes around the festive season, and this is a great way to make it look slightly more fun and a little different to the usual decoration!
We’re combing BBC Good Foods Decorating Recipe and Mary Berry’s (obvs) fruit cake recipe to bring you a Christmas Cake Spectacular this year!
(Hint: The recipe requires you soaking the fruit for 3 days and storing for a month or more- though this bit isn’t imperative but it will add flavour!)
Mary Berry’s Fruit Cake:
Ingredients:
175g raisins
350g natural glacé cherries (halved, rinsed and dried)
500g currants
350g sultanas
150ml brand or sherry
2 oranges (zest only)
250g softened butter
250g light or dark muscovado sugar
4 large free-range eggs, room temperature
1bsp black treacle
75g blanched almonds, chopped
275g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp mixed spice
Method:
- Place all the dried fruit, including the cherries, into a large mixing bowl, pour over the brandy and stir in the orange zest. Cover with clingfilm and leave to soak for three days, stirring daily.
- Grease and line a 23cm/9inch deep round tin with a double layer of greased greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 140C/120C Fan/Gas 1.
- Beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and almonds into a large bowl. Add the flour and ground spice and mix throughly until blended.
- Stir in the soaked fruit and spoon into the tin, smoothing to make it level.
- Bake in the centre of your oven for 4-4 1/2 hours or until it feels firm to the touch and is golden brown. A skewer should come out clean. Once cooked, remove from oven and cool in the tin.
- Once cooled, pierce the cake and feed it with a little extra brandy.
- Wrap the cold cake in a double layer of greaseproof paper and foil and store in a cool place for up to three months.
Fondant decoration:
Ingredients:
500g ready-to-roll white fondant icing
2 tbsp smooth apricot jam
Red and Green food colouring gels
Edible Gold leaf (optional)
Method:
- Roll the fondant out to thickness of £1 coin. Using the cake tin you cooked the cake in as a template, cut out a circle from the fondant. Then about the third of the way down the circle, cut horizontally across in an undulating line to create the dripping effect.
- Warm the jam in a small pan to heat until it has loosened and brush on top of the fruit cake. Place the fondant icing you have cut on top- the jam acts as the glue.
- Using some icing offcuts, colour some icing using red-food colouring and roll into one or two balls to create the berries.
- Repeat the same but using green food colouring and roll out. Then cut them into holly leaf shape and using a blunt knife, create the lines for the leaves.
- Using the jam, glue the berries and leaves to the top, and dust with gold leaf if desired.
- Enjoy!
Alternatively:
You can cut your icing to cover the whole cake, and then using a cookie cutter, cut out shapes to create a different design!
You could use stars to create a night sky, christmas trees to create a forest scene, or more!
